


The Man With the Marshmallow Heart

by bees_stories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Season/Series 07, Why Castiel was covered in bees, mending a friendship, reaching out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bees_stories/pseuds/bees_stories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's friendship with Dean is broken. Cas wants to repair it, but he can't get past Dean's defenses. Frustrated, he asks some unlikely friends for help. Contains general spoilers for season seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man With the Marshmallow Heart

***

Castiel sat in a meadow, contemplating possibilities. In the distance, a bird trilled a hopeful tune, looking for a companion to come and pass the time. A moment later, a second bird replied and he sighed a contented sigh, happy for them both. Friends were a blessing.

He was feeling both more and less confounded about a problem that had been frustrating him greatly. He had been so bothered that he had tracked down Meg and transported her from her hiding spot in an Amsterdam cafe to talk it over. She had just left and the faint scent of sulfur temporarily competed with that of the sweet smell of wildflowers. He glanced down at a blossom she had stripped of petals as they'd talked and then tucked it away safely in his pocket because it reminded him of her; it was beautiful in an unconventional way and it was much wiser than its surface appearance suggested.

Meg had opened his eyes. She had explained Dean to him in a way that finally made sense. Ever since their reunion, even after he'd apologized, Dean had been different. He was cold. And hard. Sometimes it hurt to be around him because he was so angry. 

Attempts to make amends hadn't helped. In fact, they seemed to make things worse. Cas had the feeling that Dean no longer considered him family, the way he used to, and that hurt most of all, even if he had been the one to reject Dean first, back when he'd been so mad with power he didn't know what he was saying.

Meg plucked the petals from a purple cone-flower one at a time. Finally, when only one remained, she handed over the nearly-denuded stalk and said that underneath Dean's macho man posturing was a little boy with a heart made of marshmallow. Cas didn't know what a marshmallow was, so she had showed him. Marshmallows were ooey and gooey and sticky when you bit into them. They were nothing like the tough muscular blood pump that most living things had stuck in their chests, and he became more confused than ever. 

Meg had taken a deep breath. People did that a lot when they were around him. Cas knew it was a way to buy time as they worked out new ways to explain what might have been obvious or at least less incomprehensible in his prior life, before his reincarnation and amnesia. Much about the universe had been revealed to him since he had reintegrated his mind and body at the hospital, but it seemed that this new wisdom came at a price. He had lost mundane information he'd once known to make room in his consciousness for the greater truths. 

A marshmallow heart was a metaphor. A figure of speech comparing two unalike things to suggest a similarity. Dean's heart wasn't really made of marshmallow. But he was, at his core, not nearly as hard as he made himself out to be. Cas ascending to godhood had stuck a skewer in Dean's heart. "Not a real skewer," Meg had added hastily. "A pretend skewer, but it had felt real to him." 

She had patted Cas on the shoulder and smiled a sad smile. "Humans have a saying; once bitten, twice shy. Dean's afraid to give you a second chance, Clarence, but I believe in you."

"I believe in you too, Meg," Cas had replied solemnly and then he smiled. It generally was a good idea to believe in the existence of other beings because most of the time, they were real. Except for Lucifer. He hadn't been real. Although he'd made some very valid points about the nature of reality versus fantasy during their debates before Cas had discovered his big brother was, in fact, a figment of Sam's imagination. 

A bee buzzed nearby, busily going about her day. Cas held open his palm and she lit upon it. They talked briefly. It seemed she was a scout and now that she was satisfied by what was blooming around them, she planned to return to her hive and tell her sisters. 

The ordered society of the bees made Cas sad and nostalgic for his old life. Angels had nearly as regimented a society as bees. Structure made life easy. There were fewer decisions to make. Less responsibility. He was responsible for himself now. They all were. They had no one to lead them like the bees did, although a few of his brothers and sisters still clung to the old ways, maintaining the hierarchy of the garrisons. Father was still in hiding. He had left his children to stand or fall on their own. Cas wasn't strong enough to stand alone, he needed friends to help him. He had Meg and Sam, but he wanted Dean. 

The bee's tiny feet tickled as she walked across his palm. He knew he shouldn't keep her, she had much work to do before her day would end, but he broke off a flower anyway and carefully sprinkled its pollen onto the bee's path so that she would linger a little longer. 

She went to work, stuffing her pollen sacs, tickling his palm and giving Cas much to think about. 

He had watched Dean many times since their reunion. Usually, he used stealth-mode, invisibly observing the others as they went about their lives. One night, after Dean had drunk himself nearly insensible, Cas had tried to offer comfort, laying down on the bed and resting his head against Dean's shoulder. 

Dean had sensed his presence. Even in his alcohol induced stupor he had rejected it, curling into himself and holding his body taut until he'd finally passed out entirely. Although the rejection had hurt, Cas had made himself stay the night. He'd taken on a little of Dean's pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Sam had buckled under the onslaught of Lucifer's torture, but in his own way, Dean was just as damaged. Cas's greatest regret in a long list, was he wasn't strong enough to heal Dean as he had healed Sam. 

He was too helpless to help, yet his shame compelled him to bear witness. If he could not heal Dean directly, then there had to be a way he could do so _indirectly_. 

A second bee touched down on Cas's palm, communing with her sister. As they spoke, using an intricate combination of antennae waving and dance, Cas got the first tenuous impression of an idea. 

A beehive needed every member in order to thrive. The sisters worked together under their queen for the good of all. If the hive was threatened then they rose to its defense as one. No individual, not even the queen, stood alone.

Were these not the lessons that Dean was in danger of forgetting? Did he not need friends and allies if the Leviathans were to be returned to Purgatory? Did he not need to lean occasionally on others, so that when the time came, he could stand tall?

He couldn't tell Dean the parable of the bees Cas realized as an excited smile broke out over his face. He needed to _show_ him. But to do it properly, he would need the bees' help. He addressed the two sisters on his palm very humbly as he explained his plan.

***

Cas widened his senses and found Dean. He was, as Cas suspected, out in the yard of their most recent safe house, tinkering with his latest car. It was what Dean did when he was frustrated. Lately, he'd been frustrated a lot, and the car had benefited greatly.

He spoke to the bees, explaining that they might feel a bit disorientated by the sudden change of location. Once they hummed they understood, he shifted. 

Dean dropped the box in his hands and made a sound. It was very loud and several octaves above his normal range. The bees didn't like it and their contented hum turned into an angry buzzing. 

Cas tried to take Dean's reaction in stride. He did, after all, tend to get wrapped up in his thoughts when he was alone, and he hadn't considered anything other than an enthusiastic response to his arrival. Perhaps Dean had an insect phobia he wasn't aware of. He settled more comfortably against the sun-warmed hood of the car, humming soothingly back at the bees and smiling reassuringly at Dean.

Visibly, Dean made an effort to pull himself under control. 

"The hell, Cas! Why are you covered in bees?" 

He stood well back from the car, his eyes darting nervously from Cas's face to the shed behind him, as if he was thinking about making a break for it, but he wasn't sure what the bees would do if he did. 

"They're perfectly harmless, Dean, I brought them for you." 

Surely once Dean understood this was a gift he would relax. Wouldn't he? Cas began to have some serious doubts. 

"Yeah, well, you can un-bring them." Dean whispered through gritted teeth, as if he was wary of upsetting the bees even further. "Wish them into a corn field or something, already." He glanced around again, saw no one was coming from the direction of the house, and then sighed. "Please, Cas?"

For the first time in a long time, Dean's eyes held a little of their old familiarity and Cas could not refuse, even though he was disappointed. He'd hoped Dean would allow the bees to walk on his skin and share their wisdom, but clearly that was a trust exercise best left for another day.

Cas thanked the bees for their time and then sent them back to the wildflowers. When he looked up, Dean had his eyes averted. 

"Where are your clothes?" 

The warmth of the metal felt good against his bare skin, even though the reflected heat of the sun was no substitute for the bees, whose tiny lives vibrated with potential. But Cas had come to try and build bridges and it was obvious that as long as he was naked, Dean would be uncomfortable and unwilling to talk. He wished his pajamas and coat back into existence and slid off the hood of the car. 

"That's better," Dean said as he took a few grudging steps closer. "What are you doing here, Cas?" 

Cas shrugged. "I wanted to show you the bees. There were things they could have told you." 

"About the Leviathans?"

"So single minded," Cas replied sadly. "No. Not about … them."

Even the word made his mind close in on itself. He shut his eyelids tightly until the memory of the creatures squirming inside him subsided. When he opened his eyes, Dean was looking around the yard again, like he did when he was assessing risks. 

"About what then?"

The closed off feeling radiated harshly from Dean. He held his arms tight against his chest, protecting his marshmallow heart. It hurt to watch him. It hurt to be near him. Cas wanted to take Dean into his arms and hold him and then take all that terrible pain away so that he would smile and not look at him with such cold eyes. 

He couldn't do it. He wasn't strong enough. Not yet. Cas stuck his hands into his pockets. His fingers brushed against the stem of the flower that Meg had given him. He brought it out and examined it. Though the one purple petal was creased, it still hung on bravely to the center. 

Willing his feet to move, Cas crossed to face Dean. He held out the stem and said, "I believe in you." 

With a skeptical frown, Dean accepted his gift. His jaw worked, as if he was trying to say something but he couldn't quite let the words leave his lips. Finally he muttered. "Uh... thanks." 

Cas smiled as Dean stuck the stem into one of his toolbelt's pockets, and then he glanced down at the ground, picked up the box he'd dropped, and held it as if he was giving a gift in return. "I've got to get back to work. If you've got a couple of minutes, maybe you can stick around and help." His eyes dropped downward towards the box.

Grateful that Dean was reaching out to him, Cas nodded. Dean nodded back. He opened the hood, retrieved more tools, and then began to poke at the different structures and the tubes and wires that ran between them. Eventually, he began to lecture on the intricacies of the internal combustion engine, occasionally interrupting himself to ask for one tool or another, pointing out what he wanted so that Cas could hand it to him, instead of getting it himself. 

Cas didn't understand a word. But he was still happy. Maybe later, Dean would let him explain about the bees.

End


End file.
